All the faces of Agnès Jaoui

Agnès Jaoui has no shortage of inspiration. Cinema, literature, music… The actress shines in all areas, and we are pleased to be with us, very well surrounded for this new carte blanche of “Comme un samedi”.
So let’s take a tour of her world and meet the people who inspire her, move her, or work with her.
First of all, the cinema, with Agathe and Adam Bonitzer, the children of the director Sophie Fillières whose posthumous film, My life my facereleased in theaters on September 18 and in which Agnès Jaoui is in every shot. How did they supervise the post-production according to their mother’s wishes? They tell us about it.
The film, eminently intimate, highlights the difficult reinvention of a woman in her fifties: how to recover from a profound existential crisis to open a new chapter?

A seasoned musician who has been weaving poetic and mixed writing for a decade, Nawel Ben Kraïem lent her unique pen and voice to Agnès Jaoui for a few pieces on her new album, Wait for the sun to come backwhich appears under the Baboo Music label, and so it was natural that she entrusted him with the live music.

And what about literature? Agnès Jaoui, who is signing her first book, The size of our breastsreads us an extract, and invites Alice Fagard, an opera singer who is also writing her first novel, to join him. The Mistress has a mustache. The opportunity to reflect on the gesture that makes us write… An impulse that Nawel Ben Kraïem knows well, who is also a poet, and to whom we owe several collections.
Is poetic writing a form of music?

Finally, throughout her career, Agnès Jaoui has made art rhyme with commitment. Close to the associative environment, she invites Anne Hirsch, journalist, documentary filmmaker and daughter of Maria Nowak founder of the association ADIE (Association for the Right to Economic Initiative), as well as Cyrille Andrieu-Lacu, clown and actor, co-founder of the association “Cœur Vert Nez Rouge”.

Pif, paf, youkou: genesis of the film “My life my face” by Sophie Fillières

The movie My life my face is surely one of the most autobiographical films of the director, who nevertheless wanted to entrust the main role to an actress she did not know. Agnès Jaoui was passionate about this film project as soon as she read it, because nothing is left to chance in the script, everything is thought out with great precision. After the encounter with the words of the director came the time for the meeting between the two artists: Agnès Jaoui says that the first time they saw each other, on Place du Capitole in Toulouse, she immediately realized their affinities.

Every morning of filming, which initially took place in Sophie Fillières’s own apartment, Agnès Jaoui put on the director’s clothes and shoes. What is there of Agnès Jaoui in this film? What is there of Sophie Fillières?It was a creation of both of us.explains the actress, with a lot of her and a little bit of me. It was a funny exchange and at the same time very obvious. We were like in telepathy“.

Adam Bonitzer says that Sophie Fillières, his mother, felt that he and his sister were the right people to take over. Regarding the film itself, he explains that the director shot it entirely with a handheld camera, an unprecedented choice in her filmography, which offers a very high frontality necessary for the project. Agathe Bonitzer specifies for her part that, unlike the work of sublimating reality that Sophie Fillières had done for The beautiful and the beautiful (2017), it was necessary for My life my face that the oscillation of the camera matches that of the character.

Live music: Nawel Ben Kraïem

Nawel Ben Kraïem is a singer, actress, poet and author of the collection The body don published in June 2024 by Bruno Doucey. We hear it in particular on the title “Un taxi pour la Marsa”, which appears on Agnès Jaoui’s album Wait for the sun to come back (Baboo Music) which will be released on September 20. She is here to share with us, in a musical live, a piece from her compilation Arabic Touch and two tracks from previous albums.

For the occasion, Nawel Ben Kraïem did not come alone. She is accompanied by two musicians: Malik Ziad on the mandolin and Nassim Kouti on the acoustic guitar, with whom she has worked for more than ten years. This live performance with reduced orchestration allows us to feel the essence of her universe.The bone of my work is felt live, there is something very sensitive in poetry and music” she confides.
She interprets My Region, By my name and finally Safsari. This last title is the name of a white veil traditionally worn in Tunisia. A veil affiliated with memories, ancestors, grandmothers. For Nawel Ben Kraïem: “It is a walk through time, this veil would be like a guardrail against time which can change.”

“I never stopped singing”

Agnès Jaoui returns to a passion that never left her: music. Although less publicized, she played in churches, in psychiatric hospitals, wherever it was offered to her. It was the secret garden that allowed her to have great freedom. She admits that she could never have stopped making music: “it’s vital“.
After singing in many languages, she offers a new album in French, Wait for the sun to come back. She confides that singing is what makes her believe most in humanity: “It is literally the search for harmony.“.

“The tragedy for me is really the withdrawal into oneself”

Agnès Jaoui, close to the community, naturally became the godmother of “ Green Heart, Red Nose“, the association co-founded by Cyrille Andrieu-Lacu.
“Green Heart, Red Nose” invites clowns where they have never been, in child psychiatry.
His goal is not to put on a show, but to create a moment of encounter, an exceptional moment. For Cyrille Andrieu-Lacu, “The strength of the clown is innocence” and its goal is to help the child in this place. This association is full of new things but already shows its effectiveness both in supporting children and in the possibility of reviewing the functioning of health institutions.
Agnès Jaoui also invites the Adie (Association for the Right to Economic Initiative) which provides support for everyone in creating a business. Founded by Maria Nowak, it is her daughter Anne Hirsch who comes to talk about this association, its operation and its history.

Live speech: Agnès Jaoui reads an extract from “The size of our breasts”, published by Grasset

For the first time, Agnès Jaoui takes up the pen and tells: friendship, first, unwavering but also made of rivalries, astonishments, betrayals. Learning one’s gender, joyful or distressing, marked by doubts and sometimes painful injunctions. And school humiliations, social codes, class contempt, everything that forged her convinced and determined personality. Tender, funny, absolutely personal, the work comes to life with the illustrations of Cécile Partouche, full of wit and sensitivity.
She reads us the first chapter.

Sing and write

Agnès Jaoui approaches writing with joy. She wanted to invite Alice Fagard, author of The mistress has a mustachea children’s book illustrated by Eva Châtelain (Alice Jeunesse, 2023). Furthermore, an opera singer, she evokes the musicality of writing, with a “meeting between words” and of a “attempt to find a justness“. Also present on stage, the poet and singer Nawel Ben Kraïem insists on the difference between musical research and poetic enterprise, strong in “hors-champs” : “In poetic writing, I delve inside myself ” she says.

More information on Agnès Jaoui’s news:

• The movie My life my face by Sophie Fillières is released in theaters on September 18.
  With Agnès Jaoui, Angelina Woreth and Édouard Sulpice.
  Synopsis: Barberie Bichette, who is called Barbie to her great displeasure, may have been beautiful, may have been loved, may have been a good mother to her children, a reliable colleague, a great lover, yes perhaps… Today, it’s dark, it’s violent, it’s absurd and it terrifies her: she’s 55 years old (might as well be 60 and soon more!). It was inevitable, but how can you deal with yourself, with death, with life in short…

• Son premier roman, The size of my breastswith illustrations by Cécile Partouche, was published by Grasset on September 11
• Son album Wait for the sun to come back sous le label Baboo Music
• Agnès Jaoui signs the staging of Baldassare Galuppi’s opera, The Female Mandirected by Vincent Dumestre
  This production can be discovered in Dijon from November 7 to 8, then at the Théâtre de Caen and at the Royal Opera of the Château de Versailles.